Europe and the Americas: 14th April refining news

Canada

Canadian businessman David Black has said that a refinery should be built in Kitimat, not Asia to process oil from Alberta. Black has stated that building the plant in Alberta would reduce greenhouse gases, which he expects to be twice as voluminous if the plant were to be built in China. Coke production, according to Black would also occur at a Chinese refinery and be detrimental to the environment, and would not occur at all in a Canadian facility.

Ireland

Phillips 66 has taken its Irish refinery off the market after receiving limited interest since offering the plant for sale last year. The Whitegate plant is the only refinery in Ireland and has a processing capacity of 71 000 bpd. Phillips 66 has said it will keep the plant online until at least mid 2016.

Mexico

On Friday 11 April, a boiler exploded at the Ciudad Madero refinery due to excessive pressure. Pemex, the owners of the plant, reported no injuries and production at the facility was not affected. The plant has a processing capacity of 190 000 bpd.

Pemex also announced on Friday that its Salamanca refinery was operating normally after a power outage in March. Refinery workers started a gradual restart of the plant following the outage on 30 March.

Suriname

The construction phase of an expansion project at the Tout Lui Faut refinery is reportedly progressing. Preparations for precommissioning is now complete and some new systems are at the point of startup. The plant is owned by Staatsolie.

Turkey

SOCAR has said that it has finished negotiations with banks regarding the financing of the Star refinery in Turkey. The SOCAR Turkey Yatirim JSC has been established to construct the plant with US$ 1.9 billion of capital and a 40% public share.

USA

On Friday 11 April a US$ 300 million financial aid package for Alaska refineries failed to pass the House Finance Committee. The package was for a five year tax credit and grant program to help the unstable finances of the Alaskan refining industry as a whole. Loans have been announced as preferable by the committee to the five year tax program.

The south side of Espada Park, San Antonio, Texas was closed on Saturday 12 April due to a refinery spill. HazMat crews were deployed to the site to remove the fuel spilled from the Calumet owned facility.